UC-NRLF 


Smith    on    Preparedness 


SIMEON  STRUNSKY 

Editorial  Staff 
New  York  Evening  Post 


Author 

Through  the  Out-looking  Glass 
with  Theodore  Roosevelt 


New  York 


Copyright,  1916 
By  Simeon  Strunsky 


ONE  CITIZEN  DOES  HIS  DUTY 

New  Year's  eve,  and  well  into  the  next  day, 
Smith  sat  in  his  room  and  thought  about  prepared- 
ness. 

The  holiday  season  was  different  from  any  he 
could  remember.  The  shops  had  bigger  crowds 
than  they  had  a  year  ago.  More  people  on  the 
train  carried  brown-paper  parcels.  People  were 
much  more  cheerful.  They  were  no  longer  waiting 
for  Prosperity.  They  knew  that  Prosperity  was 
here.  Last  year  they  had  to  force  the  holiday 
spirit.  Now  they  were  happy  without  trying. 

But  not  all  the  time. 

There  was  a  shadow  upon  the  holiday  making. 
Smith's  neighbor  in  the  train  would  be  talking  of 
the  revival  of  business,  bumper  crops,  overflowing 
exports,  and  suddenly  he  would  spy  a  fat  headline 
across  the  aisle  and  remark  that  we  were  unpre- 
pared. Thereupon  all  hands  would  proceed  to  feel 
miserable. 

Unprepared  for  what? 

Unprepared  for  everything.  Unprepared  for 
the  German  fleet  when  it  chooses  to  come  over. 
Unprepared  for  the  British  fleet  when  that  comes 
over.  Unprepared  for  the  German  and  British 

33Q332 


fleets  svhen  they  come  over  together.  Unprepared 
for  Japan,  for  the  Latin  American,  the  hyphenated 
American,  invasion,  the  destruction  of  our  coast 
towns,  the  slaughter  of  our  wives  and  children  after 
the  terrible  manner  of  Belgium  and  the  more 
terrible  manner  of  the  war-films.  Unprepared  if 
the  war  in  Europe  goes  on  and  still  more  unpre- 
pared if  peace  should  come  suddenly. 

Christmas  that  year  was  not  what  it  should  have 
been  because  people  were  unprepared  for  trouble. 

People  were  uneasy  and  perplexed  and  Smith 
was  one  of  them.  He  would  cling  to  a  Subway  strap 
with  brown-paper  parcels  all  over  him  and  worry 
about  our  national  defences.  He  wanted  to  know 
his  duty. 

And  then  it  occurred  to  him  that  the  best  way  he 
could  serve  his  country  was  to  take  a  night  off 
and  think  this  matter  through.  The  people  he  met 
were  little  help.  When  they  talked  preparedness 
they  fell  into  set  phrases.  They  had  scarcely  begun 
before  they  were  suspecting  each  other  of  being 
militarists  and  pacifists. 

That  was  the  trouble,  thought  Smith.  People 
have  been  arguing  this  matter  too  much  with  each 
other.  Why  not  talk  it  over  with  one's  self?  Not 
on  the  train  or  in  the  restaurant  or  in  the  news- 
papers and  magazines,  bufl  at  home,  where  one 
could  take  all  the  time  he  wanted  and  not  be 
tripped  up  on  a  clever  debating  point  by  the  other 
fellow.  Before  he  tackled  the  other  man  Smith 


wanted    to    establish    what   the    diplomats    call    an 
Entente  Cordiale  with  his  own  soul. 

He  thought  that  would  be  a  good  way  of  begin- 
ning the  new  year. 

II 
IN    CASE    OF    MISUNDERSTANDING 

Let  me  begin  by  defining  my  standpoint  on  pre- 
paredness^ said  Smith. 

I  am  not  a  militarist.  I  am  certainly  not  a 
pacifist.  I  do  not  believe  in  turning  the  other  cheek. 
I  am  not  in  favor  of  leaving  the  first  cheek  unpro- 
tected against  a  blow  that  is  sure  to  come.  If  a  bigger 
navy  is  essential  for  the  safety  of  the  nation,  then 
let  us  have  a  bigger  navy.  If,  in  addition,  we  must 
have  a  bigger  army,  let  us  have  a  bigger  army.  If 
universal  military  service  is  necessary  for  the 
preservation  of  this  republic  we  must  go  in  for  uni- 
versal service.  If  we  cannot  avoid  conscription, 
then  let  it  be  conscription. 

You  see,  said  Smith  to  himself,  I  am  not  of  those 
dangerous  men  who  call  themselves  idealists. 
My  perplexity  arises  from  no  conflict  between  a 
fixed  ideal  and  the  fear  of  being  compelled  to 
abandon  it.  I  certainly  do  not  want  to  blind  my- 
self to  facts.  If,  for  instance,  it  should  be  shown 
that  preparedness  involves  the  survival  of  this 
nation,  that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  If  the  war  leaves 
the  nations  in  a  position  where  dog  eats  dog,  then  I 

5 


prefer  that  this  country  shall  be  the  dog  that  eats 
and  not  the  dog  that  is  eaten. 

I  must  make  one  correction.  I  have  said  that 
I  am  bound  to  no  fixed  idea.  That  is  not  quite 
true.  I  do  have  an  ideal.  I  want  this  country  to 
remain,  if  possible,  what  people  have  been  trying 
to  make  it  for  the  last  140  years — a  land  of  peace, 
industry,  and  democracy.  That  is  the  thing  which 
sticks  in  my  mind  when  I  talk  and  think  prepared- 
ness. I  find  myself  thinking  less  of  what  our 
preparedness  will  do  to  Germany,  or  England,  or 
Japan,  and  more  of  what  it  will  do  to  us. 

But  even  here  I  am  practical.  I  am  willing  to 
.forego  the  ideal  of  democracy  if  it  is  a  question 
of  our  national  existence.  If,  for  our  survival  as 
a  nation,  it  is  necessary  that  we  become  like  Ger- 
many, then  let  us  be  Germany.  If  we  can  survive 
only  under  a  Czar,  then  let  us  be  like  Russia. 

But  what  Smith  wanted  to  see  was  America  sur- 
viving as  America. 

Ill 
LESSONS  OF  THE  WAR 

Seventeen  months  of  war  in  Europe  have  taught 
a  great  many  people  a  great  many  things.  You 
only  realize  what  a  great  war  it  must  be  when 
you  see  how  many  different  lessons  it  has  taught  to 
different  people. 


It  is  very  odd.  General  Joffre  has  not  yet 
learned  the  lessons  of  the  war,  but  Mr.  Stanwood 
S.  Menken  has.  Admiral  Jellicoe  walks  the 
quarter-deck  and  worries,  but  that  is  presumably 
because  he  has  not  consulted  Congressman  Gardner 
who  knows  all  about  it.  Mr.  Asquith  and  the 
Kaiser  are  wondering  how,  after  the  war,  peace 
can  be  made  permanent.  Mr.  Roosevelt  knows 
how. 

Smith  did  not  try  to  enumerate  all  the  lessons 
of  the  war  that  have  been  learned  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  But  here  are  a  few: 

We  need  400,000  Continentals  (Secretary  Gar- 
rison). 

t    We  need  1,500,000  men  (the  War  Staff). 
*•    We  need  universal  military  service  (Mr.  Roose- 
velt). 

The  submarine  has  done  away  with  the  Dread- 
nought (Naval  Staff  six  months  ago). 

The  Dreadnought  is  queen  of  the  seas  (Naval 
Staff  to-day). 

We  need  battle-cruisers  (Secretary  Daniels). 

I  am  not  so  sure  about  battle-cruisers  (Admiral 
Goodrich). 

Coast-fortifications  are  played  out  (before 
March  18,  1915). 

Look  at  the  Dardanelles!  (after  March  18, 
1915). 

We  must  have  Prohibition  (Captain  Hobson). 
•We  must  have  suffrage  (the  Suffragists). 
7 


We  must  have  eugenics   (the  Eugenists). 

But  Smith  found  himself  wondering  whether  the 
war  in  Europe  has  really  taught  us  anything  or 
whether  it  has  only  frightened  us: 

Nearly  every  man  I  speak  to  is  thinking  of  the 
horror  of  Europe.  The  thing  weighs  on  our  hearts. 
The  millions  of  dead  in  the  trenches,  the  ruined 
cities,  women  slaughtered  and  outraged,  children 
starving — we  think  of  these  things  happening  to 
us  and  we  say  it  must  not  be. 

But  has  the  war  taught  us  anything  new  about 
war?  When  we  are  at  a  loss  for  words  to  de- 
scribe the  agony  of  Europe,  we  say  War  is  Hell. 
This  is  fifty  years  old  and  was  made  in  America. 
Have  we  ever  been  in  danger  of  thinking  that  war 
is  anything  but  hell?  Europe  has  only  confirmed 
what  we  have  always  known  to  be  true — that  war 
is  horrible,  that  in  war  men  become  beasts,  women 
suffer,  children  starve,  cities  burn. 

But  the  horror  in  Europe  has  no  bearing  on  the 
question  whether  we  are  prepared  or  unprepared 
to  ward  off  invasion.  That  is  a  question  which 
must  be  answered  by  the  facts  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  Our  coast  artillery  would  shoot  just  as 
well  or  just  as  badly  if  the  dead  in  Europe  were 
only  four  hundred  thousand  instead  of  four  million. 
Our  battleships  would  steam  just  as  fast  or  as 
slowly  if  Louvain  had  not  been  burned  or  Rheims 
had  not  been  bombarded.  A  small-sized  Hell  is 
not  much  more  attractive  than  a  full-sized  Hell.  - 


IV 

WHY  NATIONS  GO  TO  WAR 

He  had  said  that  people  were  shaken  by  the  hor- 
ror of  Europe.  Smith  felt  that  was  not  the  whole 
truth. 

A  great  many  people  in  this  country  have  been 
appalled  by  something  more  than  the  physical 
agonies  of  the  war.  They  feel  that  they  are  in 
the  presence  of  a  moral  catastrophe.  They  have 
discovered  that  our  civilization  knows  no  law  but 
Force.  Promises  have  been  broken.  Treaties 
have  been  violated.  The  rules  of  international  law 
have  been  thrown  overboard.  A  great  many  peo- 
ple now  believe  that  a  nation  will  go  to  war  when- 
ever it  thinks  it  can  get  the  jump  on  its  enemies, 
and  with  no  other  incentive  than  the  expectation 
of  victory. 

To-day  we  are  afraid  of  peace*  as  well  as  of 
war.  In  war  a  nation  will  break  treaties,  invade, 
seize,  violate.  In  times  of  peace  it  stands  ready 
to  begin  breaking  treaties,  invading,  confiscating, 
violating,  the  moment  the  chance  offers. 

If  this  is  true,  then  we  must  prepare  to  the  hilt. 
If  any  nation  will  fall  upon  any  other  nation  re- 
gardless of  preexisting  treaties,  friendship,  un- 
broken centuries  of  pacific  relations,  then,  of 
course,  every  nation  must  be  on  its  guard  against 
any  and  every  other  nation. 

9 


Is  this  true?  Do  peoples  and  Governments  go 
into  war  as  light-heartedly  as  a  County  Dublin 
man  into  Donnybrook  Fair?  Suppose  the  German 
General  Staff  had  decided  in  1914  that  America 
was  just  as  easy  to  conquer  as  France.  Would  it 
have  been  a  toss-up  whether  the  German  army 
should  march  upon  Paris  or  the  German  fleet  start 
out  for  New  York? 

Smith  was  not  a  historian  but  he  recalled  some- 
thing of  the  forces  and  causes,  the  rivalries  and 
hatreds,  the  wars  and  revolutions,  that  have  made 
possible  the  great  war  of  to-day. 

War  and  rivalry  in  the  Balkans  go  back  to  the 
Turkish  conquest  of  Constantinople  nearly  five 
hundred  years  ago  and  beyond. 

War  and  rivalry  between  Russia  and  her  neigh- 
bors go  back  a  thousand  years  to  the  time  when 
Russia  fixed  her  eyes  upon  Constantinople  when 
it  was  yet  Byzantium. 

War  and  hatred  between  Frenchman  and  Ger- 
man go  back  to  the  very  foundations  of  modern 
Europe.  Nearly  three  hundred  years  ago,  French 
armies  laid  waste  German  lands  in  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  One  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago 
Prussian  armies  set  out  to  destroy  the  French 
Revolution.  What  Napoleon  did  to  Prussia,  what 
Bliicher  did  to  Napoleon,  1870-71  and  Alsace- 
Lorraine — Smith  knew  that  much. 

Rivalry  and  fear  between  England  and  Ger- 
many is  not  so  old,  but  war  between  the  two  has 

10 


not  come  overnight.  Men  have  been  expecting  war 
and  predicting  war  since  Germany  set  out  to  build 
her  navy,  twenty-five  years  ago. 

War  between  Russia  and  Japan  did  not  come 
overnight.  Ten  years  before,  Russia  had  joined 
with  Germany  and  France  to  rob  Japan  of  the 
fruits  of  her  victory  over  China;  and  she  continued 
to  vex  Japan. 

We  went  to  war  with  Spain  over  Cuba.  We 
nearly  went  to  war  with  Spain  over  Cuba  thirty 
years  before  1898. 

Nations  do  not  go  to  war  for  trivial  purposes 
and  upon  slight  provocation.  They  know  well 
enough  what  a  bitter  business  it  is.  When  they  do 
go  in  the  stakes  must  be  high  indeed,  the  impelling 
hate  must  be  bitter  and  lasting.  Nations  do  not 
grow  irritated  and  jump  at  each  other's  throat. 
They  growl,  they  threaten,  they  square  off,  they 
patch  up  a  truce,  they  postpone  the  day  of  reckon- 
ing. Do  you  recall  the  crises  of  only  the  last 
twenty  years  which  might  have  brought  war  and 
did  not?  Fashoda  as  between  England  and 
France;  the  Kaiser's  telegram  to  Kriiger;  the 
Kaiser's  journey  to  Tangier;  the  Conference  of 
Algeciras;  Austria's  seizure  of  Bosnia  and  Her- 
zegovina; the  crisis  of  1911 ;  the  crisis  of  1913? 

You  might  say  that  war  did  not  come  because 
one  or  the  other  nation  was  unprepared.  France 
was  not  ready  to  fight  Germany  in  1905.  The 
following  year  Germany  was  not  ready  to  fight  the 

11 


present  Allies.  In  1908  Russia  was  not  ready  to 
fight  Germany  and  Austria.  This  may  be  true. 
But  doesn't  this  show  that  nations  may  hate  and 
still  hold  back?  Doesn't  it  show  how  high  the 
venom  had  to  mount  before  the  present  catastrophe 
came? 

Nations  do  not  fight  at  the  drop  of  the  hat. 

V 
HYMN  OF  HATE 

Smith  grew  sad  as  he  thought  how  thoroughly 
hated  we  are.  We  are  to-day  the  best-hated 
nation  on  earth.  Mr.  Choate  has  said  so.  Smaller 
men  have  repeated  it.  Everybody  hates  us.  There- 
fore we  must  prepare  against  everybody. 

We  haven't  a  friend  in  the  world.  England 
hates  us  because  we  have  not  come  to  her  aid  in 
fighting  the  battle  of  democracy  and  individual 
freedom. 

France  hates  us  for  the  same  reason.  In  ad- 
dition she  hates  us  for  not  sending  enough  free 
ambulances  and  Red  Cross  bandages. 

Germany  hates  us  because  of  our  munitions. 

Belgium  and  Servia  hate  us  because  we  have  not 
sent  enough  money  and  doctors  and  nurses. 

Consequently  England,  France,  Germany,  Bel- 
gium, and  Servia  will  attack  us  the  moment  they 
can  get  the  jump  on  us. 

Smith  recalled  what  someone  said.     War  is  more 


dreadful  because  of  what  it  does  to  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  men  than  for  its  killings,,  burnings,,  and 
outragings.  This  is  true.  See  what  war  has  done 
to  the  mind  of  a  man  like  Mr.  Choate. 

He  finds  that  some  Englishmen  are  irritated 
because  the  fighting  is  fine  and  we  won't  come  in. 
It  is  true  that  a  great  many  more  Englishmen 
would  rather  not  have  us  come  in,  but  put  that 
aside.  Say  that  England  as  a  whole  is  irritated 
with  us.  To  Mr.  Choate  irritation  is  the  same 
thing  as  hatred,  and  hatred  spells  war. 

France  is  vexed  at  us.  To  Mr.  Choate  vexation 
is  the  same  thing  as  hatred,  and  that  means  war. 

Germany  is  angry  with  us  because  of  American 
ammunition.  German  anger,  Mr.  Choate  thinks, 
is  hatred,  and  hatred  means  war. 

Belgium,  Servia,  Austria,  Russia,  are  disgruntled 
with  us.  Mr.  Choate  believes  it.  means  war. 

Well,  thought  Smith,  I  meet  a  good  many  men 
a  day  who  vex  me  and  irritate  me  and  leave  me  dis- 
gruntled. I  can  think  of  ever  so  many  people 
whom  I  detest.  I  don't  know  how  many  street 
brawls  most  people  have  been  in  since  they  left 
school.  I  have  been  in  very  few.  If.  irritations 
and  detestations  always  led  to  conflict,  the  citizen's 
daily  life  would  be  one  glad  succession  of  assault 
and  battery. 

If  nations  fought  whenever  they  are  irritated 
and  disgruntled  this  poor  world  would  never  know 
a  week  of  peace. 

13 


Does  Mr.  Choate  really  believe  that  England 
bates  us  as  she  hates  Germany?  That  Germany 
hates  us  as  she  hates  France  and  Russia?  That 
Belgium  hates  us  as  she  hates  the  Kaiser?  Does 
he  really  think  that  our  blockade  note  meant  the 
same  thing  to  England  as  the  invasion  of  Bel- 
gium? That  our  refusal  to  come  into  the  war 
means  the  same  thing  to  France  as  Alsace-Lor- 
raine? That  our  munitions  mean  the  same  thing 
to  Germany  as  the  might  of  England,,  and  the 
same  thing  to  Austria  as  the  murder  of  her  imperial 
heir? 

Does  Mr.  Choate  really  think  that  one  year  of 
anti-American  sentiment  means  war  as  surely  as 
the  thousand  years  of  wars,  invasions,  alliances, 
counter-alliances  and  festering  hatreds,  that  have 
brought  desolation  upon  Europe? 

Irritation,  vexation,  multiplication,  invasion — 
does  Mr.  Choate  think  it  is  as  simple  as  all  that? 

It  isn't  a  question  of  history,  thought  Smith.  It 
is  a  matter  of  common  sanity  and  common-sense. 

VI 

INSURANCE  AGAINST  WAR— THE 
BENEFICIARY 

Smith  liked  the  phrase  about  insurance  against 
war : 

We  are  all  agreed  as  to  who  should  be  the  sole 
beneficiary  when  we  insure  against  war.  Our 

14 


country.  The  only  question  is  how  much  or  how 
little  we  include  under  that  name. 

How  do  we  go  about  the  business  of  insurance? 
By  striking  a  balance  between  the  amount  of  pro- 
tection we  would  like  to  buy  and  the  premium  we 
can  afford  to  pay. 

Sensible  men  do  not  go  without  insurance. 
Neither  do  they  insure  in  panic  and  pay  premiums 
beyond  their  strength.  No  man  in  his  senses  would 
deprive  his  family  of  food  and  clothes  for  the  sake 
of  his  complete  peace  of  mind.  In  his  last  hour 
it  would  be  rather  absurd  for  him  to  glance  at  his 
pale  and  rickety  brood  and  sigh,  "Anyhow,  they 
are  well  fixed/' 

That  kind  of  preparedness  I  have  no  use  for. 

How  is  it  when  we  speak  of  our  wives  and  our 
children?  In  the  last  resort  we  think  of  a  little 
group  of  physical  beings  and  their  absolute  wants. 
Insurance  enough  to  enable  them  to  keep  body  and 
soul  together  when  we  are  gone  is  the  minimum 
policy  we  think  of,  no  matter  how  large  the 
premium.  None  of  us  are  pacifists  when  it  comes 
to  that  kind  of  preparedness. 

But  when  we  speak  of  protecting  our  family  we 
mean  something  more  than  bare  subsistence  for  one 
individual  5  foot  3,  one  individual  4  foot  6,  one 
individual  3  foot  8.  We  think  of  them  as  beings 
with  souls  as  well  as  bodies,  with  capacities  for 
growth,  with  appetites  for  joy  and  love,  with 
faculties  for  work,  laughter,  play,  books,  aspira- 
15 


tions,  dreams.  This  complete  life  we  want  to  in- 
sure for  them.  This  is  the  higher  preparedness 
we  all  desire. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  country.  In  the  last 
resort,  in  the  face  of  invasion,  our  country  would 
be  just  our  country:  this  stretch  of  soil  between 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific,  between  Mexico  and 
Canada,  with  the  people  on  it,  and  our  outlying 
possessions  with  the  people  in  them.  To  keep  that 
soil  inviolate  and  to  safeguard  the  lives  of  its  in- 
habitants is  the  minimum  national  insurance  policy 
we  can  think  of.  No  premium  can  be  too  high  for 
that. 

But  our  country,  in  the  absence  of  the  peril  of 
war,  means  much  more  to  us  than  area  and  popula- 
tion. They  are  the  skeleton  upon  which  the  nerves 
and  muscles  and  flesh  of  a  nation  are  stretched. 
And  this  living  body  is  made  up  of  all  that  our 
history  and  our  feelings  have  poured  into  it,  our 
record  in  the  past  and  our  hopes  for  the  future, 
our  functions  and  capacities,  our  good  qualities 
and  our  bad,  our  aspirations,  our  dreams. 

When  we  say  America  we  speak,  or  love  to  think 
that  we  speak,  of  a  land  which  prefers  democracy 
to  caste;  self-government  to  government  from 
above;  the  business  of  work  and  trade  to  the  busi- 
ness of  fighting.  We  think  of  our  country  as  a 
land  where  people  are  born  as  individuals  instead 
of  being  cast  from  a  mould,  and  where  men  may 
rise  and  fall  through  their  own  efforts  instead  of 
16 


remaining  fixed  to  their  anchorages  by  the  accident 
of  parentage. 

Smith  knew  that  professors  and  such  people  are 
in  the  habit  of  sneering  at  ideals.  But  you  and  I, 
said  Smith  to  himself,  know  that  there  are  such 
things.  We  do  not  always  carry  them  about  with 
us.  We  find  too  often  that  they  interfere  with 
business.  But  we  know  that  there  is  a  better  and 
a  worse  in  life  and  if  business  allowed  we  would 
much  rather  do  the  better  thing  than  the  worse. 

After  all  we  do  not  deliberately  sit  down  and 
teach  our  children  that  the  game  of  life  is  played 
with  a  sandbag  and  brass  knuckles.  We  teach  them 
other  and  finer  things,  hoping  that  experience  will 
not  give  us  the  lie  too  often.  You  and  I  have  ideals 
for  our  children.  Every  man  has. 

It  is  the  same  with  our  country.  We  know  that 
nations  do  not  get  on  in  life  by  continuous  practice 
of  the  Golden  Rule.  Being  human,  we  want  our 
country  to  grow,  be  rich  and  cut  a  figure  in  the 
world.  The  ideal  would  be  to  have  our  country  do 
all  this  and  keep  its  soul  clean.  Being  practical 
men  we  do  not  expect  to  see  this  come  true,  but  we 
do  want  to  see  America  come  as  near  the  ideal  as 
may  be. 

When  we  speak  of  our  country  we  do  not  think 
only  of  America  in  America.  We  think  also  of 
America  among  the  nations.  There,  too,  we  have 
an  ideal.  We  want  this  nation,  without  sacrificing 
itself,  to  impress  on  the  world  the  things  we  be- 
17 


lieve  in — self-government,  democracy,  industry, 
peace,  freedom  from  racial  and  religious  hatreds. 
Every  great  people  has  done  something  for  civiliza- 
tion. We  want  to  contribute  our  share. 

Naturally  we  can  give  only  out  of  what  we  have. 
We  have  no  great  religions  to  offer  to  the  world, 
no  great  philosophies  and  arts;  but  we  do  have  a 
religion  and  philosophy  of  social  and  political  life. 
We  have  not  produced  a  Zoroaster  or  a  Mohammed, 
a  Shakespeare  or  Goethe  or  Michael  Angelo.  But 
we  have  had  Lincoln. 

VII 
IF  NOT  WE,  THEN  WHO  WILL? 

Smith  imagined  himself  setting  out  to  build,  from 
the  foundations  up,  a  land  that  should  be  proof 
against  invasion. 

The  object  would  be  to  establish  a  nation  which 
might  take  the  lead  in  upholding  good-will  against 
hate  and  peace  against  war.  If  the  experiment 
failed,  we  should  have  to  confess  that  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  peace  idea.  It  will  have  been  tested 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstances. 

Here  are  the  architect's  specifications  as  Smith 
imagined  them: 

Item :  A  big  country ;  with  room  for  a  great  many 
millions  of  inhabitants ;  a  temperate  climate ;  great 
rivers  and  lakes  to  facilitate  communication ;  moun- 
tains crammed  with  coal,  iron,  copper,  gold,  and 
18 


silver;  great  plains  for  the  raising  of  food;  forests 
and  quarries  for  the  construction  of  homes  and 
factories  and  churches.  In  other  words,  a  self- 
sustaining  country. 

Item:  a  big  population;  both  for  the  purpose  of 
working  the  wealth  of  the  land  and  for  the  feeling 
of  security  that  comes  from  great  strength. 

Item:  a  high  quality  population,  so  as  to  in- 
crease the  original  advantage  of  numbers.  For 
that  purpose  Smith  would  pick  the  boldest,  the 
hardiest,  the  most  resourceful  spirits  of  all  other 
countries  and  transport  them  to  his  new  land. 

Item:  a  couple  of  oceans,  three  thousand  miles 
wide  on  one  side,  five  thousand  miles  wide  on  the 
other,  so  as  to  make  that  country  as  secure  against 
invasion  as  any  country  can  be  so  made  by  natural 
barriers. 

Item:  a  country  free  from  the  traditions  that 
afflict  the  rest  of  the  world;  traditions  of  race 
hatred;  traditions  of  religious  hatred;  traditions 
of  military  glory;  the  traditions  created  by  the 
murderous  philosophers  and  professors  who  are  al- 
ways writing  books  to  prove  that  what  has  always 
been,  always  must  be. 

I  have  not  filled  in  the  details  in  my  architect's 
drawing,  thought  Smith,  but  I  have  enough  to 
make  me  wonder  which  of  the  nations  of  to-day 
comes  closest  to  specifications. 

Remember.  I  am  not  speaking  as  an  idealist. 
I  am  not  saying  that  this  country  which  we  have 

19 


created  is  obliged  at  all  hazards  to  hold  up  the 
banner  of  peace  and  international  good-will.  I  am 
a  practical  man.  I  am  only  wondering  whether 
this  country  would  not  be  in  a  position  to  give  the 
peace  idea  a  more  thorough  trial  than  any  other 
country.  I  am  only  wondering  whether  this  nation 
ought  not  to  be  the  last  to  be  frightened  into  ac- 
cepting the  war  ideal.  If  the  experiment  fails 
here,  where  will  it  succeed  ? 

But  then  I  don't  want  to  be  cocksure.  Per- 
haps after  all,  America  is  not  big  enough,  strong 
enough,  sufficiently  sure  of  itself  to  show  the  way. 

War  ?  Yes,  we  hate  it  in  America.  Peace  ?  Yes, 
peace  is  our  ideal.  But  let  George  do  it.  Let  Wil- 
helm  do  it.  Let  Nicholas  do  it.  Let  Poincare  do 
it.  Let  the  shattered,  ravening,  maniac  nations  of 
Europe  do  it.  How  absurd  of  them  to  turn  their 
blood-shot  eyes  upon  us,  wondering  whether  we 
will  show  them  the  way  out.  We  dare  not  take  the 
chance.  We  aren't  strong  enough. 

In  the  present-day  panic  of  the  white  peoples, 
thought  Smith,  we  are  the  only  solvent  institu- 
tion. When  we  go,  white  civilization  is  bankrupt. 

Would  it  mean  then  that  the  world's  hope  of 
peace  goes  overboard?  I  do  not  know.  I  have 
spoken  hitherto  of  the  world  as  though  it  were 
made  up  of  Europe  and  America  only.  But  there 
is  Asia.  There  are  still  China  and  India.  Who 
knows?  Perhaps  the  ideals  of  Jesus  may  yet  be 
realized  by  the  people  of  Confucius  and  Buddha. 

20 


VIII 

PANIC  AND  PLUCK 

Which  of  the  two  nations,  the  United  States 
and  England^  would  one  say  is  to-day  under  harder 
pressure?  Or  is  any  man  insane  who  would  ask 
that? 

Well,  which  of  the  two  nations,  the  United  States 
and  England,  shows  clearer  signs  of  going  off  its 
head?  Think  this  over  a  moment  and  you  will  see 
that  it  is  not  England. 

Nowadays  when  I  hear  someone  speak  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  democracy,  Anglo-Saxon  freedom,  Anglo- 
Saxon  pluck,  meaning  England  and  America,  I  find 
myself  thinking  that  the  old  phrases  are  still  true 
of  England  but  are  no  longer  true  of  this  country. 

Look  at  England.  While  we  are  conjuring  up 
wars  and  invasions,  England  is  facing  the  real 
thing.  She  is  fighting  for  her  Empire  and  the  his- 
tory of  a  thousand  years.  She  has  been  through 
seventeen  months  of  war.  She  has  lost  nearly 
three-quarters  of  a  million  men.  She  has  seen  war 
rain  down  from  the  skies.  She  is  facing  an  op- 
ponent tougher  than  Napoleon.  She  is  undergoing 
the  supreme  test. 

Yet  up  to  the  present  England  has  refused  to 
go  in  for  compulsory  military  service. 

Why? 

Because  up  to  now,  when  an  Englishman  has 
spoken  of  his  country  he  has  meant  a  good  many 


of  the  things  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  our 
country;  and  one  of  these  things  has  been  an 
aversion  for  conscript  armies.  It  may  be  a  virtue. 
It  may  be  a  prejudice.  That  does  not  matter.  It 
is  enough  that  in  the  England  he  knows  and  loves 
there  is  no  place  for  armies  on  the  European 
model. 

Before  Englishmen  will  give  up  this  idea  which 
has  grown  very  dear  to  them,,  they  must  be  hard 
put  to  it.  The  thing  may  come,  but  after  seventeen 
months  of  war  and  many  defeats  and  disappoint- 
ments it  is  not  here.  More  than  once  during  these 
seventeen  months  England  was  in  a  tight  place. 
Conscription  might  have  helped  her  out.  It  was  a 
risk,  going  on  with  the  old  method  of  voluntary  en- 
listment. But  she  thought  the  risk  was  worth 
taking. 

Compare  England's  peril  with  our  own  "peril." 
Compare  England's  situation  to-day  with  our  own 
fears  of  what  may  happen  to  us  ten  years  from 
now.  Then  think  what  it  means  that  people  to-day 
should  be  speaking  of  universal  military  service  as 
the  only  hope  of  American  democracy.  Througli 
seventeen  months  of  war  such  as  the  world  has 
never  seen  England  has  held  out  against  the  sur- 
render of  an  old  faith.  Almost  in  the  flash  of  an 
eye,  and  in  times  of  peace  we  are  asked  to  abandon 
the  faith  that  goes  back  to  the  origins  of  our 
nation. 

This  is  not  national  defence,  thought  Smith. 
This  is  national  panic. 

22 


IX 

INSURANCE    AGAINST   WAR— THE    RISK 

He  recalled  what  he  had  said  about  insurance 
and  premiums.  He  rehearsed  it  to  himself. 

I  said  that  no  sensible  man  would  leave  his  wife 
without  food  and  clothes  and  put  all  his  wages  into 
insurance  policies  in  order  to  protect  her  future. 

I  can  think  of  no  man  of  sense  starving  his 
country  in  order  to  protect  her  future;  starving 
her  of  her  ideals,  of  her  reputation,  of  her  self- 
confidence,  of  her  role  in  civilization. 

Unless  the  unmistakable  necessity  is  there. 

If  America  must  become  Russianized  or  Prus- 
sianized in  order  that  she  may  survive,  why  then  it 
must  be.  But  the  need  must  be  shown. 

If  we  must  give  up  our  democratic  faith  in  order 
to  meet  danger  from  without,  let  it  be  so.  But 
the  danger  must  be  proved. 

But,  thought  Smith,  when  some  one  tells  me 
that  we  must  give  up  this  or  that  in  order  that 
we  may  be  perfectly  secured,  in  order  that  the 
country  may  be  safeguarded  for  ever,  he  is  a  fool 
or  worse. 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  perfect  security.  All 
life  is  a  risk.  We  take  chances  in  being  born.  We 
take  chances  in  leaving  the  cradle.  We  take 
chances  when  we  marry  and  bring  children  into  the 
world.  Life  is  a  risk  which  men  are  glad  to  endure 
and  for  which  men  are  willing  to  pay  the  price. 
23 


It  is  only  a  question  of  how  heavy  a  risk  a  normal 
man  ought  to  carry.  % 

If,  for  America,  the  chances  of  invasion  were 
twenty-five  per  cent,  within  the  next  ten  years  then 
we  should  be  justified  in  sacrificing  a  good  many 
ideals  and  liberties  to  pay  for  our  protection. 

If,  for  America,  the  chances  of  invasion  are  one 
per  cent,  within  the  next  ten  years,  then  "universal 
military  service  the  hope  of  democracy"  is  not 
preparedness  but  panic,  not  prudence  but  a  be- 
trayal of  ourselves  and  treason  to  America. 

It  means  that  we  haven't  pluck  enough  to  take 
a  man's  chance  for  what  we  pretend  to  value  in 
life. 

X 

A  BIT  OF  MODERN  HISTORY 

He  wondered  whether  he  was  growing  senti- 
mental. 

Here  am  I  calling  myself  a  practical  man,  ad- 
dressing a  plain  citizen  like  myself,  and  I  keep  on 
talking  of  ideals,  and  aspirations  and  our  duties 
to  humanity.  It  is  all  very  well  to  speak  of  what 
we  can  do  for  the  ideals  of  humanity  and  the  suf- 
fering nations  of  Europe.  But  what  sort  of  appeal 
is  that  to  the  average  citizen  who  can  spare  mighty 
little  time  from  considerations  of  bread  and  butter 
to  ponder  on  his  duty  to  people  three  thousand 
miles  away? 

Well,  thought  Smith,  it  seems  to  me  that  pre- 
24 


cisely  the  great  mass  of  simple  people  have  always 
shown  that  they  have  the  ideals.  It  is  the  men 
who  have  to  fight  for  bread  and  butter  who  have 
not  infrequently  given  up  their  bread  and  butter 
for  an  idea. 

He  remembered  something  about  public  opinion 
in  England  during  our  Civil  War.  The  English 
aristocrats  were  against  the  North.  The  com- 
mercial classes  were  hostile.  But  the  English 
masses  ? 

The  workers  in  the  English  cotton  towns  were 
starving.  The  Union  blockade  was  the  reason.  If 
England  had  intervened  and  forced  an  end  to  the 
war  when  the  South  was  victorious  there  would 
have  been  work  and  bread  for  the  English  factory 
workers. 

Do  you  want  to  know  how  the  workers  of  Eng- 
land suffered?  Here  is  something  from  the  Eng- 
lish press  of  that  time: 

"The  shadow  of  the  American  calamity  is  creep- 
ing with  a  slow  but  steady  advance  over  the  shining 
wealth  of  our  cotton  districts.  Little  by  little  the 
darkness  grows.  First  one  town  and  then  another  is 
swallowed  up  in  the  gloom  of  universal  pauperism." 

"The  cotton  famine  is  altogether  the  saddest 
thing  that  has  befallen  this  country  for  many  a  year. 
There  have  been  gloomy  times  enough  before  this. 
But  in  the  worst  of  our  calamities  there  has  seldom 
been  so  pitiable  a  sight  as  the  manufacturing  dis- 
tricts present  at  this  moment." 
25 


Before  the  cotton  blockade  set  in  there  were  in 
the  poor-houses  of  fifteen  English  cotton  towns, 
56,085  paupers.  A  year  later  there  were  249,842 
paupers.  That  is  how  Englishmen  suffered. 

And  what  did  the  English  masses  do  when  their 
rulers  seemed  bent  on  taking  sides  with  the  South? 
They  held  public  meetings  and  protested  against 
"any  apparent  complicity  with  the  Southern  States 
in  the  clandestine  equipment  of  warships."  They 
adopted  such  a  resolution  in  Manchester  where  the 
number  of  paupers  had  risen  from  5,974  to  41,692 
in  a  single  year. 

English  workers  were  starving,  but  they  met  in 
their  trade  unions  and  John  Bright  spoke  for  them: 

"Impartial  history  will  tell  that,  when  many  of 
your  rich  men  were  corrupt,  when  your  press  was 
mainly  written  to  betray,  the  fate  of  a  continent 
and  its  vast  population  being  in  peril,  you  clung  to 
freedom  with  an  unfaltering  trust  that  God  in  His 
infinite  mercy  will  yet  make  it  the  heritage  of  all 
His  children." 

That  is  the  way  men  in  the  factories  weighed 
their  bread  and  butter  against  the  working  out  of 
a  great  idea  three  thousand  miles  away. 

On  the  whole,  thought  Smith,  it  is  safe  to  speak 
of  ideals  and  service  to  humanity,  when  addressing 
plain  Americans. 


XI 

IF  GERMANY  WINS 

He  lit  another  cigar  and  went  on: 

I  am  afraid  I  have  been  indulging  in  rhetoric. 
I  find  myself  viewing  with  alarm  and  pointing  the 
finger  of  scorn.  Whereas  the  thing  I  really  want 
to  do  is  to  get  at  the  real  meaning  of  preparedness. 

I  know  by  this  time  how  the  problem  presents 
itself  to  me.  It  is  a  practical  problem.  It  consists 
in  balancing  the  chances  of  invasion  against  the 
price  we  must  pay  for  protection.  I  have  been 
thinking  of  invasion  the  way  most  of  us  speak, 
Invasion  with  a  capital  I,  from  anywhere,  from 
everywhere.  Let  us  get  a  little  closer  to  the 
subject. 

If  Germany  wins — 

That,  thought  Smith,  is  one  great  fear  that  pos- 
sesses people  when  they  speak  of  national  defence. 
They  say  Invasion,  but  they  mean  Germany — or 
Japan.  Is  it  mere  coincidence  that  so  many  men 
who  are  hot  for  preparedness,  are  heart  and  soul 
for  the  Allies?  Mr.  Roosevelt's  pleas  for  national 
defence  seldom  omit  mentioning  our  criminal  in- 
difference with  regard  to  the  violation  of  Belgium. 
Men  like  Choate,  Pinchot,  any  number  of  others  T 
might  mention,  believe  that  we  ought  now  to  be 
fighting  on  the  side  of  the  Allies.  They  believe 
that  we  are  now  playing  a  role  of  cowardly 
neutrality  because  our  navy  is  inadequate  and  our 

27 


army  is  virtually  nil.  If  our  navy  were  twice  as 
big,  if  our  army  had  half  a  million  men,  we  should 
not  be  playing  the  coward  to-day. 

And  I  imagine  they  are  not  altogether  in  the 
wrong.  With  a  big  army  and  a  very  big  navy  the 
human  temptation  to  jump  in  might  have  been 
irresistible.  Preparedness  would  have  meant  that 
we  were  prepared  to  jump  into  the  European  free- 
fight — and  on  the  side  of  England. 

This  begins  to  sound  very  much  like  pro-German 
argument.  So  let  me  explain  how  I  feel  about  the 
present  war,  thought  Smith. 

I  want  to  see  the  Allies  win.  I  want  to  see 
Germany  beaten;  not  crushed  as  people  used  to 
say  a  year  ago.  I  don't  think  it  possible  and  I 
don't  think  it  desirable  for  the  good  of  the  world. 
But  I  do  want  to  see  Belgium  cleared,  Servia  re- 
stored, Germany  getting  no  increase  of  territory 
in  the  east,  and  as  much  of  Alsace-Lorraine  handed 
back  to  the  French  as  they  ought  to  have  by  claim 
of  nationality  and  the  will  of  the  people  in  the  con- 
quered provinces.  I  believe  it  would  be  a  calamity 
for  the  world  if  Germany's  war  philosophy  and  the 
spirit  that  animates  her  ruling  classes  and  her  pro- 
fessors should  triumph. 

These  being  my  sympathies  in  the  present  con- 
flict, what  if  Germany  should  win? 

Well,  if  Germany  had  won  in  a  rush,  if  Paris 
had  been  taken,  if  the  British  fleet  were  shattered, 
I  should  be  in  favor  of  preparedness  much  more 

28 


drastic  than  what  Mr.  Wilson  has  advocated.  But 
Germany  has  scored  no  such  victory  and  expects 
no  such  victory.  The  most  she  hopes  for  is  a  bal- 
ancing of  accounts  with  something  on  the  credit 
side  of  her  ledger.  Will  that  kind  of  victorious 
Germany  invade  us?  Will  she  leap  on  us  as  soon 
as  she  is  out  of  her  present  mess,  without  pre- 
liminary friction,  without  giving  us  time  to  arm? 

That  I  cannot  conceive.  I  think  of  the  million 
dead  which  Germany  will  have  harvested  before  the 
war  is  over  and  she  has  her  "victory."  I  think  of 
another  million  crippled  and  incapacitated.  I  think 
of  her  economic  exhaustion,  her  hamstrung  in- 
dustries, her  vanished  foreign  trade,  her  enormous 
debts,  and  I  cannot  imagine  Germany  setting  out 
with  light  heart  upon  the  invasion  of  America. 

I  think  of  the  millions  in  Germany  among  whom 
even  to-day  the  longing  for  peace  is  finding  utter- 
ance. I  think  of  the  masses  who  are  crying  out 
against  annexation  of  conquered  territory  in  horror 
at  the  thought  of  perpetuated  blood-feuds.  I  think 
of  the  men  in  Germany  who  want  reconciliation 
with  the  hereditary  enemy,  with  France,  with 
Russia,  with  England,  and  I  cannot  imagine  Ger- 
many turning  upon  us. 

I  think  of  Germany  declaring  war  upon  us  and 
forcing  upon  millions  of  our  "German-Americans" 
a  bitterer  choice  than  they  have  yet  had  to  face. 
To-day  they  feel  they  have  the  right  to  take  sides 
in  a  war  between  two  foreign  nations,  of  whom  one 


is  the  home  of  their  ancestors.  They  could  not 
and  would  not  take  sides  with  Germany  against 
the  United  States.  That  is  a  fact  which  the  Kaiser 
must  reckon  with. 

I  try  to  think  of  Germany  so  enamored  of  a 
potato  diet,  so  crazy  about  milkless  nurseries  as  to 
turn  against  us;  and  the  thing  is  inconceivable  to 
me. 

XII 

IF  ENGLAND  WINS 

I  said  about  our  best-known  advocates  of  pre- 
paredness that  they  want  England  to  win  the  pres- 
ent war.  They  are  not  afraid  of  England. 

Still,  there  are  others.  To  them  the  danger  of 
England's  victory  in  the  present  war  arises  not 
from  England.  It  looms  on  the  other  side  of  the 
world — Japan.  People  may  admit  that  the  pros- 
pect of  America  and  England  at  war  is  incon- 
ceivable. But  short  of  that,  they  will  tell  you, 
that  England,  with  an  eye  to  capturing  the  trade 
of  the  world  would  not  be  averse  to  seeing  us  at 
grips  with  Japan,  and  neutral  England  selling  her 
goods  like  anything. 

It  is  a  point  worth  considering.  I  believe  firmly 
that  if  we  ever  have  to  think  of  invasion,  it  is  to 
the  Pacific  we  must  look.  And  for  a  very  simple 
reason.  As  against  Europe  I  do  not  consider  that 
we  are  open  to  invasion.  Neither  can  I  imagine 
a  hostile  army  landing  in  San  Francisco.  But  as 

30 


against   Japan   our   coastline  is   not  in  California. 
It  is  in  the  Philippines. 

Here  again  I  am  severely  practical.  I  might  say 
that  the  Philippines  are  not  worth  fighting  for. 
But;  human  nature  being  what  it  is,  I  recognize 
that  if  the  Japanese  land  at  Manila,  the  Philip- 
pines will  become  very  much  worth  fighting  for. 
If  the  Japanese  take  the  Philippines  without  pro- 
vocation on  our  part,  I  should  want  to  fight  myself. 

Suppose,  then,  the  thing  has  happened,  and  a 
Japanese  army  is  in  Luzon  and  Mindanao.  What 
should  we  do? 

To  me  the  problem  is  not  complicated.  To  keep 
the  Philippines,  the  Japanese  navy  must  hold  the 
sea.  Very  well,  then.  We  will  go  out  and  smash 
the  Japanese  fleet.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  and  in 
spite  of  what  Congressman  Gardner  has  told  us, 
we  are  strong  enough  to  do  that  now.  But  assume 
we  are  not.  Then  we  can  become  strong  enough 
in  two  years.  We  can  outbuild  Japan  and  take 
the  Pacific  from  her.  Having  done  that  the  rest  is 
simple.  We  can  raise  and  train  an  army  of  half 
a  million  men  and  ship  them  over  to  the  Philippines 
and  take  care  of  the  Japanese  army. 

I  know  what  people  will  say.  If  we  are  going  to 
have  a  big  navy  and  a  big  army  to  retrieve  the 
Philippines,  why  wait  for  the  Japanese  to  strike? 
Why  not  have  the  army  now  and  insure  ourselves 
against  Japan's  misbehaving? 

31 


The  answer  brings  me  back  to  the  question  of 
probability  which  is  to  me  the  very  heart  of  the 
problem.  I  think  the  chances  of  Japan's  attacking 
us  in  the  Philippines  are,  say,  one  in  twenty.  The 
risk,  that  is,  is  five  per  cent.  And  I  consider  a  big 
army  too  high  a  premium.  I  am  not  thinking  of 
the  money  cost.  I  am  thinking  of  the  cost  in 
sacrificed  national  ideals,  in  the  befooling  of  our 
whole  past.  If  we  arm  now  we  tell  Japan  that  we 
expect  her  to  play  the  thief.  If  we  remain  quiet 
we  say  that  we  think  the  chances  are  ninety-five 
per  cent,  that  Japan  will  not  play  the  thief.  If 
any  man  thought  me  ninety-five  per  cent,  respect- 
able I  should  be  quite  content. 

I  know,  of  course,  what  would  happen  in  this 
country  if  the  one  chance  in  twenty  should  come  to 
pass  and  Japan  should  seize  the  islands.  While 
we  are  increasing  our  fleet,  while  we  are  training 
our  half-million  men,  we  will  chafe.  We  will 
resent  the  inglorious  position  into  which  we  have 
been  forced.  We  will  say,  "See,  that  is  what  hap- 
pens when  you  are  not  prepared." 

But  I  think  the  five  per  cent,  chance  of  being 
humiliated  for  a  period  of  two  years  is  outweighed 
by  the  desirability  of  having  America  remain  a 
democratic  country. 

I  won't  even  mention  the  chance  that  if  we  have 
a  navy  twice  the  size  of  Japan's  and  an  army  of 
half  a  million  men,  we  shall  discover  one  fine  day 
that  the  best  way  of  keeping  the  Japanese  out  of 

32 


Manila  is  by  landing  an  American  army  in  Yoko- 
homa.  Schemes  for  national  defence  have  a  way 
of  turning  out  like  that. 

XIII 
IF  IT  IS  A  DRAW 

I  say  if  it  is  a  draw.  But  is  there  much  doubt 
in  any  man's  mind  about  that  "if"  ? 

Victory  of  the  kind  that  makes  a  people  forget 
its  sufferings  and  sacrifices  is  in  sight  for  no  one 
in  the  present  war.  We  cannot  foresee  a  tri- 
umphant Germany  with  her  foot  on  the  neck  of 
England,  menacing  the  world.  We  cannot  foresee 
?  triumphant  England  with  her  foot  on  the  neck  of 
Germany,  her  eyes  turning  upon  us  as  the  only 
rival  to  her  interests  and  her  prestige.  Concede 
that  one  side  or  the  other  will  emerge  with  a  shred 
of  conquered  territory,  with  the  fragment  of  an 
indemnity,  what  will  this  Europe  look  like  after 
the  war? 

It  will  be  a  Continent  waking  from  a  debauch  of 
evil  passions  with  a  vast  moral  headache.  It  will 
be  a  Continent  sick  of  slaughter,  sick  of  hate  and 
fears,  bled  white  of  its  economic  strength,  pitifully 
weak  and  thoroughly  ashamed. 

I  am  not  dealing  with  fancies.  The  thing  is 
there  now.  The  nations  are  sick  of  killing  and  be- 
ing killed,  of  starving  and  blockading,  of  march- 
ing and  rotting  in  the  trenches.  I  do  not  want  to 

33 


exaggerate.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  England  or 
Germany  is  sick  of  the  war  to  the  point  of  crying 
quits;  though  even  that  is  not  unlikely.  They  are 
in  the  grip  of  war  and  they  have  set  their  teeth 
and  are  determined  to  see  it  through.  Because  they 
see  no  way  out.  But  men  in  England  and  Ger- 
many are  looking  for  a  way  out.  And  in  the 
meanwhile  they  are  asking  themselves,  Why? 

It  is  the  first  instinct  of  man  reasserting  itself. 
When  they  are  sane,  men  would  rather  create  than 
kill,  build  than  burn,  plough  than  lay  waste.  When 
peace  comes,  when  the  fire  is  out,  men  will  go  to 
v\ork  to  rebuild  the  civilization  of  Europe. 

But  they  will  do  more  than  that.  They  will  go 
on  asking  themselves  why  this  thing  had  to  be. 
They  will  look  for  some  way  to  prevent  its  hap- 
pening again.  They  may  fail.  The  next  war 
will  prove  that.  But  they  will  try  nevertheless. 
In  this  work  of  rebuilding  the  civilization  of  white 
men,  should  America  help  or  hinder? 

I  am  not  dealing  in  fancies.  The  desire  for  a 
guarantee  against  another  conflagration  is  to-day 
speaking  out  in  every  country.  In  Germany  the 
Socialists  were  swept  off  their  feet  by  the  upheaval 
of  international  passions.  They  are  beginning  to 
find  their  bearings.  They  are  talking,  not  only  in 
Germany,  but  all  over  Europe,  of  the  revival  of 
international  Socialism.  They  may  fail;  but  they 
will  try. 

34 


In  England  men  are  searching  for  a  defence 
against  secret  diplomacy. 

In  Russia,  after  the  war,  we  may  see  one  of  the 
world's  greatest  battles  for  democracy. 

All  over  Europe  the  nations  will  engage  in  a 
struggle,  silent  or  violent,  against  the  forces  which 
have  brought  about  the  calamity  of  to-day.  They 
will  protest  against  secret  diplomacy,  against  the 
war-making  power  of  the  ruling  classes,  against 
the  spirit  of  militarism,  against  the  tradition  of 
national  hatreds  and  fears  which  the  war-makers 
utilize  for  their  own  purposes. 

Will  democracy  succeed  in  Europe?  I  don't 
know.  It  may  be  the  other  way  about.  The  ele- 
ments that  stand  for  national  hate  may  turn  the 
results  of  the  war  to  their  own  purposes.  The 
heritage  of  the  war  may  be,  not  reconciliation,  but 
a  fiercer  hatred.  The  militarists  may  drive  home 
their  argument  that  the  lessons  of  the  war  justify 
more  militarism.  The  enemies  of  democratic  con- 
trol in  England  may  persuade  the  nation  that 
Germany  fought  as  well  as  she  did  because  she 
was  not  bothered  with  democracy.  In  Russia  the 
revolution  may  fail. 

But  this  much  is  certain.  The  forces  of  reac- 
tion may  win  out  but  they  will  know  that  they  have 
been  in  a  fight.  The  forces  of  democracy  may  turn 
out  to  be  in  the  minority  but  the  minority  will  have 
spoken. 

In  the  course  of  that  battle,  the  men  who  fight 
35 


for  a  freer  and  safer  Europe  will  turn  their  eyes 
across  the  Atlantic.  I  wonder  which  it  would  help 
them  to  .see:  America  holding  out  against  inter- 
national hates,  armaments,  secret  diplomacies,  or 
America  tossing  democracy  into  the  discard. 

Of  course,  if  we  dare  not  take  the  chance,  that 
is  all  there  is  to  it.  If  European  democracy  goes 
down  to  ruin  because  we  dare  not  cheer  it  on,  we 
are  still  in  a  perfectly  correct  position  to  say,  as 
Macbeth  did  to  Banquo's  ghost: 

Thou  can'st  not  say,  I  did  it;  never  shake 
Thy  gory  locks  at  me. 

I  wonder. 

XIV 
A  BIT  OF  ANCIENT  HISTORY 

Smith,  without  knowing  why,  got  to  thinking  of 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  republic.  Almost  any  man 
you  meet  can  give  you  a  reason  why  Rome  fell, 
about  2,000  years  ago.  The  number  of  complica- 
tions makes  the  case  unique  in  medical  history. 

The  poor  old  Roman  republic  fell  because  it 
annexed  too  much  territory;  because  it  lost  its 
military  spirit;  because  land  ownership  passed  into 
the  hands  of  a  few  people;  because  the  Romans 
adopted  foreign  customs;  because  they  went  in  for 
circuses;  because  the  women  went  in  for  tight 
lacing;  because  the  Romans  didn't  pay  attention  to 
eugenics;  because  of  anything  you  can  think  of. 

36 


And  then  Smith  stumbled  upon  a  secret. 

The  Roman  republic  never  fell;  that  is,  to  its 
own  knowledge.  It  just  weakened,  lost  its  grip, 
and  tapered  off  into  imperialism;  but  so  quietly 
that  for  many  years  after  it  was  dead  the  Roman 
republic  was  under  the  impression  that  it  was  still 
alive. 

If  you  think  of  Rome  as  waking  up  one  fine  day 
and  discovering  that  its  liberties  were  all  gone,  you 
are  wrong.  What  happened  was  this.  Rome  would 
wake  up  in  the  morning  and  perhaps  miss  some- 
thing, but  such  a  trifle  that  one  couldn't  really  tell 
whether  it  had  been  there  the  night  before.  Next 
day  something  else  would  be  gone;  rather  a 
nuisance  this  time,  but  still  nothing  to  worry  over. 
And  then  one  morning  the  Roman  republic  woke 
up  and  found  Caius  Julius  Caesar  Imperator  sitting 
at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 

Even  then  it  wasn't  such  a  dreadful  change  when 
one  thought  it  over.  There  were  no  sudden  de- 
partures in  the  forms  of  the  Roman  republic.  The 
forms  persisted  though  the  spirit  sickened  and 
died.  Caesar  was  at  first  Consul  just  as  there  had 
been  consuls  for  half  a  thousand  years  before  him. 
Then  he  became  dictator,  but  there  had  been  dicta- 
tors before.  Then  he  was  Imperator,  which  means 
general,  just  as  there  had  been  generals  before. 
Long  after  the  Empire,  as  we  call  it  now,  was 
established  the  forms  persisted.  The  emperor  was 
only  the  head  of  the  State  and  went  through  some 

37 


form  of  election.  The  popular  assemblies  retained 
some  semblance  of  power.  Laws  were  enacted  by 
the  Senate  and  the  Roman  People.  When  Rome 
finally  knew  herself  as  an  Empire,  she  was  only 
recognizing  a  change  of  form  compelled  by  a 
change  of  spirit  that  had  long  ago  taken  place. 

People  who  live  in  a  period  of  great  change 
seldom  think  of  themselves  as  breaking  violently 
with  the  past.  It  is  only  the  scholars  who  come 
long  after  who  point  out  that  here  or  there  the 
liberties  of  a  people  "fell." 

Will  it  be  left  for  the  history  writers  of  a 
hundred  years  from  now  to  point  out  that  from 
the  year  1915  dates  the  fall  of  American  de- 
mocracy ? 

Absurd?  Let  us  hope  so.  We,  of  to-day,  feel 
that  there  is  nothing  essentially  new  in  this  busi- 
ness of  preparedness.  We  already  have  a  navy 
and  we  only  add  a  five-year  programme.  We  have 
an  army  and  we  are  only  quadrupling  it.  The 
changes  will  come  as  the  result  of  popular  will 
and  constitutional  procedure.  Congress  will  vote, 
the  President  will  sign,  and  everything  will  be  as 
before. 

And  yet,  Smith  thought,  how  swiftly  a  people 
can  drift  from  its  moorings.  Secretary  Garrison 
wants  400,000  Continentals.  The  War  Staff  want 
one  and  a  half-million  men.  Senator  Chamberlain 
wants  conscription.  This  is  doing  well  for  less 
than  a  year  of  preparedness. 

38 


Mr.  Roosevelt  doesn't  ask  for  conscription.  All 
he  wants  is  universal  military  service.  Not  a 
standing  army  like  that  of  Germany  or  France; 
that  would  be  un-American.  All  he  wants  is  an 
American  standing  army.  European  militarism  is 
a  menace  to  democracy.  But  Mr.  Roosevelt  loves 
democracy.  So  he  asks  only  for  universal  military 
service.  We  can  keep  our  old  names  and  titles 
and  badges.  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  perfectly  willing, 
provided  we  give  him  the  men  and  the  guns. 

Let  us  be  calm  then.  Whatever  happens,  we  can 
go  on  calling  ourselves  a  democracy. 

XV 
EXPENSE  ITEMS 

Smith  recalled  that  the  man  who  now  says 
that  universal  service  is  the  only  hope  of  de- 
mocracy, on  former  occasions  felt  just  as  strongly 
that  there  were  other  things  which  were  the  hope 
of  democracy. 

Smith  recalled  that  some  fifteen  years  ago  this 
nation  experienced  a  great  awakening.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt had  his  share  in  it.  We  rubbed  our  eyes, 
looked  about,  found  that  things  with  us  were  not 
as  they  should  be,  and  resolutely  set  to  work  at  the 
task  of  making  this  a  cleaner,  freer,  juster  country. 
The  Social  Consciousness  was  born.  We  entered 
upon  a  period  of  great  reforms. 

We  began  cleaning  house  in  municipal  politics. 
39 


We  tried  to  wrench  the  grasp  of  big  Business 
from  our  national  politics. 

We  got  the  popular  election  of  Senators. 

We  put  through  the  Income  Tax. 

We  began  Conservation. 

We  tackled  the  Trusts. 

We  began  a  wholesale  onslaught  on  social  misery. 
We  began  to  clean  our  city  slums  and  build  cleaner 
tenements,  playgrounds,  recreation  centres,  schools. 
We  attacked  tuberculosis,  hookworm,  pellagra,  tra- 
choma, cancer,  and  lead-poisoning  in  the  factories. 

We  set  to  work  to  eradicate  child-labor  in  the 
factories.  We  began  to  protect  our  women  in  the 
factories  and  from  that  went  on  to  the  protec- 
tion of  men  in  the  factories. 

We  passed  workmen's  compensation  laws,  mini- 
mum wage  laws,  widows'  pensions. 

We  opened  the  door  to  women  voters.  Smith 
wondered  if  the  women  knew  that  they  were  fight- 
ing for  a  full  partnership  in  a  democracy  whose 
only  hope  is  universal  military  service. 

These  are  some  of  the  tasks  which  the  American 
people  set  for  themselves  in  order  to  establish 
social  justice,  to  make  this  country  a  better  place 
for  their  children  to  live  in. 

What  is  to  become  of  all  this,  thought  Smith. 
We  haven't  the  money  because  we  need  most  of  it 
for  universal  military  service.  But  what  is  far 
worse,  we  haven't  the  inclination  now  that  we  have 
discovered  that  social  justice  is  an  illusion  and  that 

40 


the  only  hope   of  democracy  is  in  universal  mili- 
tary service. 

XVI 
OUR  NAVY  MELTS  AWAY 

Smith  thought  of  a  deadly  rejoinder  to  his  entire 
argument.  He  had  been  reasoning  that  for  us  war 
is  no  more  probable  now  than  it  was,  say,  three 
years  ago  and  that  consequently  there  is  no  need 
that  we  should  be  better  prepared  than  we  were 
three  years  ago.  But  suppose  we  were  not  pre- 
pared three  years  ago? 

That  is  precisely  the  contention  frequently  made 
in  behalf  of  preparedness.  We  need  not  be 
frightened  by  the  war,  but  we  should  be  fools  if  the 
war  did  not  induce  us  to  find  out  just  where  we  do 
stand  in  the  matter  of  national  defences.  Put 
aside  the  question  of  a  very  large  army  and  a 
bigger  navy  with  all  the  change  it  involves  in  our 
policies  and  traditions.  The  fact  is,  says  Con- 
gressman Gardner,  we  haven't  the  navy  and  the 
coast  defences  provided  for  under  our  old  policies 
and  traditions. 

Especially  the  navy.  Concerning  the  army  we 
have  never  had  any  great  illusions.  We  have  al- 
ways thought  of  it  as  sort  of  glorified  police  force. 
To  say  that  our  army  would  stand  little  chance 
against  the  military  forces  of  any  other  first-class 
Power  is  to  say  nothing  new.  But  it  is  different 

41 


with  the  navy.  We  have  always  thought  that  our 
fleet  ought  to,  and  does,,  rank  very  high  among  the 
nations  of  the  world.  Now  we  are  told  that  our 
navy  is  not  second  or  third  but  fifth,  that  it  comes 
after,  and  not  before,  the  Japanese  and  French 
fleets. 

It  is  worse  than  that.  Our  ships  are  under- 
manned, our  guns  are  outranged,  our  submarines 
float  when  they  ought  to  sink  and  sink  when  they 
ought  to  float.  We  are  short  of  ammunition.  Our 
gunners  cannot  shoot. 

If  this  is  so,  then  there  is  nothing  more  to  be 
said.  We  must  prepare.  But  how  shall  we  pre- 
pare? By  taking  these  statements  of  Congress- 
man Gardner's  at  their  face  value  or  by  trying  to 
find  out  first  whether  they  are  so? 

Well,  thought  Smith,  there  is  a  thing  called  com- 
rron-sense.  And  my  common-sense  rejects  this  pic- 
ture of  a  pasteboard  navy  and  coast  fortifications 
drawn  for  us  by  Augustus  P.  Gardner  and  his  dis- 
ciples. If  you  tell  me  that  all  at  once  our  ships 
have  lost  the  capacity  to  sail,  our  officers  have  for- 
gotten how  to  navigate,  our  men  have  forgotten 
how  to  shoot,  our  coast  artillery  has  gone  to  sleep, 
that  American  ingenuity,  initiative,  pluck,  have 
vanished  overnight,  and  that  our  defences  are  an 
empty  shell,  then  I  simply  refuse  to  believe  it. 

But  you  need  not  take  my  opinion  in  the  matter. 
If  you  must  have  experts  there  are  the  experts. 
The  commander  of  our  Atlantic  fleet  has  said  that 
42 


our  navy  to-day  can  hold  its  own  against  any  fleet 
except  Great  Britain's. 

Isn't  this  a  statement  which  goes  to  the  very 
heart  of  the  question?  It  rejects  bluntly  the  pic- 
ture of  a  cardboard  fleet  sketched  by  Mr.  Gardner 
and  filled  in  by  his  disciples.  Their  familiar  as- 
sumption, tacit  or  expressed,  is  that  in  case  of  war 
with  any  of  the  great  powers  our  fleet  will  be 
annihilated  and  America  will  lie  open  to  invasion. 
But  here  is  Admiral  Fletcher  to  say  that  the 
French  fleet  cannot  annihilate  us,  that  Japan  can- 
not, and  that  Germany  cannot.  Should  Admiral 
Fletcher's  views  be  given  some  weight  against  Mr. 
Gardner's  and  Mr.  Menken's?  Isn't  it  our  first 
duty  to  find  out  who  is  right,  Admiral  Fletcher  or 
Mr.  Menken? 

"Admiral  Dewey  Says  Coast  is  Open  to  Hostile 
Force."  So  the  Sun  blazes  it  on  the  front  page. 
What  Admiral  Dewey  said  in  his  admirably  clear 
letter  is  this:  //  our  navy  is  destroyed  our  coast 
fortifications  are  no  guarantee  against  the  landing 
of  a  hostile  force.  Consequently  adequate  naval 
defence  demands  "a  navy  strong  enough  to  meet 
011  equal  terms  the  navy  of  the  strongest  possible 
adversary." 

No  one  denies  that.  Admiral  Fletcher,  when  he 
says  that  our  fleet  is  second  to  Great  Britain's,  as- 
serts that  we  have  adequacy.  Mr.  Gardner  and 
Mr.  Menken  say  no.  Is  it  too  much  to  ask  that 
Congress  should  find  out? 

43 


XVII 
COAST    DEFENCE 

After  our  fleet  is  destroyed  our  coasts  lie  open. 
The  president  of  the  National  Security  League  has 
said:  "You  know  what  our  coast  defences  are. 
They  may  be  good  where  they  are,  but  anybody 
can  land  and  walk  around  them." 

But  Mr.  Garrison  has  said  of  our  coast  defences: 
"Yes,  sir,  they  certainly  are  adequate  for  the  pur- 
pose for  which  they  were  intended/' 

Congressman  Gardner  says  that  the  enemy's 
battleships  can  lie  out  of  range  of  our  forts  and 
knock  them  about  our  ears.  But  the  Chief  of 
Coast  Artillery  has  said: 

"All  that  has  ever  been  claimed  in  the  way  of 
coast  fortifications  being  able  to  successfully  re- 
sist the  attacks  of  warships  has  been  and  is  being 
demonstrated — No  fortifications  in  the  world  com- 
pare favorably  with  our  own." 

And  our  Chief  of  Ordnance  has  said:  "They 
[our  fortifications]  are  of  such  power  that  naval 
officers  would  not  put  their  ships  up  against  them." 

Oh,  well,  keep  your  coast  fortifications,  says  Mr. 
Gardner.  All  I  ask  is  that  our  fleet  be  wiped  out 
in  the  first  clash  of  war.  The  enemy  will  then 
land  where  he  pleases  and  in  six  weeks  there  will 
be  827,000  invaders  on  our  soil. 

Do  you  want  proof  for  the  statement  that  827,- 
44 


000  Germans  or  Japanese  can  land  on  our  shores 
within  six  weeks?  Here  it  is: 

In  1898  it  took  us  eleven  days  to  transfer  16,000 
men  from  Tampa  to  Santiago.  In  1905  it  took 
General  Oku's  army  of  four  divisions,  seven  weeks 
to  concentrate  in  Japan  and  land  in  Liao-tung 
peninsula  600  miles  away.  It  took  England  nearly 
two  weeks  to  ship  70,000  men  of  her  standing  army 
across  the  Channel.  It  took  England  and  France 
nearly  three  months  to  throw  less  than  100,000 
men  into  Salonica  from  Egypt  and  Marseilles.  In 
every  instance  the  shipping  power  had  command 
of  the  sea. 

Consequently  a  foreign  Power  can  land  827,000 
men  on  our  shores  in  six  weeks. 

I  am  not  trying  to  work  out  the  strategy  of  the 
invasion  of  America.  I  am  only  trying  to  picture 
the  state  of  mind  in  which  we  have  tackled  the 
problem. 

XVIII 
IN  A  FOG 

Is  it  too  much  to  ask  that  Congress  shall  take 
steps  to  lay  before  the  country  the  facts  upon 
which  we  are  asked  to  build  preparedness?  At 
present  the  case  is  being  tried  in  the  newspapers 
and  magazines,  by  everybody  who  can  write  down 
columns  of  figures.  It  is  not  even  necessary  to 
add  them  up  correctly.  Where  we  have  expert 

45 


testimony  it  is  fragmentary,  incidental,  or  lost 
amidst  the  vast  outpouring  of  talk  for  and  against 
preparedness.  The  people  on  either  side  who  do ' 
know  the  facts  have  not  been  confronted  with  each 
other.  I  mean  in  the  sense  of  being  brought  before 
the  same  tribunal  of  investigation  which  can 
balance  contradictory  data  and  give  us  a  reasoned, 
complete  report. 

We  need  to  know  whether  our  fleet  is  fifth  among 
the  nations  or  second. 

We  need  to  know  the  whole  truth  about  our 
coast  defences. 

It  is  said  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  people  of  this 
country  are  in  favor  of  adequate  national  defence. 
Smith  thought  it  should  be  99  per  cent. 

But  what  is  adequate  defence?  Suppose  it  is 
established  that  our  fleet  to-day  is  adequate  against 
any  other  fleet  but  Great  Britain's  as  Admiral 
Fletcher  believes.  What  then  becomes  of  our  fears 
concerning  our  exposed  coast  and  our  ineffective 
little  army? 

That  was  what  Smith  could  not  put  out  of  his 
mind.  Do  we  know  in  the  first  place  why  we  are 
being  asked  to  prepare?  Do  we  realize  in  the 
second  place  what  we  are  being  asked  to  give  up? 
We  are  in  a  haze  about  both  questions. 

Here  is  an  instance  of  the  fog  in  which  we  are 
all  working.  When  Mr.  Gardner  said  that  our 
coast  guns  had  only  sufficient  ammunition  for  half 
ar  hour,  Smith  was  astounded.  He  thought  that 

46 


our  coast  guns  ought  to  have,  say,  three  months' 
ammunition  at  the  very  least.  Had  not  the  Allied 
fleets  been  banging  away  at  the  Dardanelles  for 
nearly  nine  months? 

Well,  General  Weaver  admitted  that  our  coast 
artillery  hasn't  as  many  shells  as  it  ought  to  have. 
The  ideal  amount  would  be  a  two  hours'  supply. 
Of  course,  when  you  ought  to  have  ammunition 
for  two  hours,  ammunition  for  half  an  hour  is 
rather  bad.  But  Smith  had  been  comparing  half 
an  hour  with  nine  months.  How  was  it  with 
others  ? 

That  is  the  state  of  knowledge  in  which  the 
country  is  tackling  preparedness. 

XIX 
PANIC   AND   PREPAREDNESS 

I  am  back  again  where  I  started,  thought  Smith. 

I  tried  to  make  my  standpoint  clear  at  the  be- 
ginning. If  it  is  true  that  universal  military  ser- 
vice or  an  approach  to  it  is  the  only  hope  of 
democracy  then  I  am  for  universal  military  service. 
I  go  even  further.  If  preparedness  is  necessary 
for  the  nation,  I%  take  preparedness  even  if  it  de- 
stroys our  democracy,  provided  it  saves  the  nation. 
There  are  times  when  a  people  for  its  self-preserva- 
tion must  abandon  its  liberties.  After  the  crisis  is 
over  we  may  start  climbing  back  to  our  liberties. 
47 


If  we  fail  it  is  a  tragedy  tut  it  cannot  be  helped. 
The  nation  must  be  preserved. 

Does  the  need  exist? 

I  believe  in  national  defence,  thought  Smith.  I 
afcQ  only  hesitating  before  a  scheme  of  defence 
whose  necessity  has  not  been  established  and  for 
which  we  must  sacrifice  most  of  the  things  in  our 
national  life  we  have  always  thought  worth  defend- 
ing. I  find  myself  at  one  with  the  men  in  England 
who  believe  that  in  order  to  defeat  Prussianism  it 
would  be  a  bitter  price  to  Prussianize  the  English 
nation.  If  it  must  be,  it  should  be  done — but  not 
till  it  must  be. 

We,  whose  "danger"  is  as  child's  play  compared 
with  that  confronting  the  British  people,  our 
partners  in  Anglo-Saxon  democracy,  are  being 
asked  to  turn  the  national  life  into  new  channels, 
give  up  democracy,  give  up  the  privilege  and  the 
opportunity  to  do  our  share  for  civilization,  shut 
up  shop,  go  into  moral  receivership.  That  is, 
indeed,  one  way  of  saving  a  nation. 

All  over  Europe  men  are  freely  giving  their 
lives  for  their  country.  But  the  country  they  are 
dying  for,  thought  Smith,  is  a  country  that  shall 
be  worth  living  for.  How  is  it  with  us? 

THE    END 

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